A machine recount is underway in Collier. 30 workers, some staffers and volunteers will recount ballots from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. until all are counted.
Patrick Riley, patrick.riley@naplesnews.com; 239-263-4825

The Canvassing Board reviews a ballot that had to be duplicated during the machine recount during a Canvassing Board meeting Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, at the Collier County Supervisor of Elections Office.(Photo: Patrick Riley/Naples Daily News)

Collier County completed its machine recount Wednesday and will begin its manual recount in a race for county judge Thursday.

The Collier County Supervisor of Elections Office will send the machine recount results, certified by the county's Canvassing Board on Wednesday, to the Florida secretary of state. The machine recount began Monday.

The manual recount will start Thursday morning in a race for county judge because candidates Blake Adams and James Moon were separated by only 101 votes — or 0.08 percent of the total votes cast — after the first results from Election Day. A manual recount is triggered when the margin is .25 percent or less of the votes cast in that race.

According to Wednesday’s recount results, the two candidates are now separated by 92 votes.

In the three races undergoing statewide recounts, Collier's recount did not change the county's results by much. In the race for:

For now, Collier's sole focus on manual recounts will be on the county judge race. By law, elections officials can't begin statewide manual recounts until ordered to do so by the state, said Heather Doane, Collier elections spokeswoman.

Recount results are due to the secretary of state by 3 p.m. Thursday, but a federal lawsuit seeks to extend the deadline, with some key counties still recounting ballots.

For the county judge race, a group of 30 staffers, temporary workers and election workers will manually review the 42,183 overvotes and undervotes in an operations building behind the Collier Supervisor of Elections Office on Enterprise Avenue in East Naples.

Overvotes and undervotes, which were already sorted out during the machine recount, are ballots where a voter picked two or no choices in the race for county judge, Doane said.

The Canvassing Board will review all ballots with overvotes and any ballot that is not a "complete undervote" to try to determine the voter's intent, Doane said.

An example of an overvote would be when a voter makes more than one mark for candidates in a race; an undervote is when there is clearly no attempt to make a choice, Doane said.

Staffers and volunteers conduct a machine recount at the Collier County Supervisor of Elections Office's operations building off Enterprise Avenue on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The machine recount for one local and three statewide races has to be completed by 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018. Patrick Riley/Naples Daily News

Staffers and volunteers conduct a machine recount at the Collier County Supervisor of Elections Office's operations building off Enterprise Avenue on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The machine recount for one local and three statewide races has to be completed by 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018. Patrick Riley/Naples Daily News